Small businesses, including independent flooring retailers, have been hit hard with business-squelching health and safety regulations these past couple of weeks and the sense is that it may continue that way for some time. And while the wellbeing of our communities and each other remains the top priority, keeping the business afloat remains a very real concern. However, data trends are driving the notion that it might not be as bad as we think.
In fact, FloorForce said it has been working overtime with its data analytics team to answer questions about the status of your paid ads and digital presence. And the numbers have shown that it’s almost all good news.
If you think about it, it makes sense. As Todd Saunders, CEO of AdHawk and FloorForce, put it in a blog post, “People all over the nation are stuck inside staring at their floors all day. Numbers don’t lie, and right now they’re showing a massive pent-up demand for flooring. The minute businesses are back in action, we’re going to see that pent-up demand explode into purchases.”
In fact, the numbers are so good, FloorForce said it believes that, for flooring dealers, the best is yet to come. Here’s why.
Paid advertising has been more effective than ever
According to FloorForce data, in the past two weeks, ad campaigns for flooring dealers have been more effective than ever.
Here are the specifics: Click-Through Rates (CTRs) have remained steady. There has been zero change in Click-Through Rates when comparing the past two weeks (March 2–13) to the previous two weeks (February 17–28). The exact same number of people are clicking on your ads.
Translation: interest in your ads is the same as it was before.
Conversion Rates have increased a quarter percent
Even though the same number of people are clicking on ads, the rate at which people are converting—calling flooring stores and filling out contact forms—has actually increased by a quarter percent.
This probably isn’t leading to sales right at this minute. After all, people can’t leave their houses and businesses are limited. However, this is leading to massive pent-up demand. And once things return to normal, that pent-up demand is going to translate into instant sales.
Average Cost Per Conversion has decreased almost a full $1
The amount of money the dealer is paying per conversion has gone down by almost a full dollar over the past two weeks. Meaning, dealers are not just getting more conversions, they’re getting cheaper conversions too.
Organic searches for flooring have had their second best month…ever.
In the past month, Google has seen the second-highest number of searches containing the world “flooring” since it started keeping records back in 2004. And FloorForce said it’s seen the same number of searches for “flooring near me” as it saw in January. That’s more searches than it saw in December, November or previous months.
Obviously, this isn’t resulting in immediate sales—but it shows that people are more active than ever and that pent-up demand is huge. This massive pent-up demand means the best is yet to come.